Serendipity made me purchase Alder. I was in the RIAS bookshop in Rutland Square to buy a much more prosaic Minor Works building contract when I spotted Alder and on impulse added it to my purchase. I had no idea what it was – there was little to go on except for some beautiful photographs […]
client variouscontract value £110,000area 658 sq. m. This is one of several projects that Halvorsen Architects has carried out as part of the Dunbar Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS), having previously worked on several similar CARS projects in Gorebridge, which is funded by Historic Environment Scotland. 61–65 High Street, Dunbar is grade-B-listed, mid-18th century tenement
client: private contract value: N/A Halvorsen Architects were asked to advise on a deep green retrofit of a four-bedroom detached house in Haddington, East Lothian. The 1989 house has a timber frame, with a rendered blockwork outer skin. It was draughty and cold, with patchy insulation, a lot of air leaks and cold bridging. It
A deep green retrofit is always going to be more sustainable than switching from fossil fuels to renewables – and is much more sustainable than building new. This is being reflected in the changing workload of many ecological architectural practices, including Halvorsen Architects, which are increasingly taking on more retrofit projects than new-builds. This has
client private engineers CRA Ltd. contract value £85,000 area 95 sq. m. A modest Georgian barn on a steading in Midlothian has been converted into accommodation for a growing family. The ground floor was remodelled to provide a large open-plan living area, study and bedroom alongside the kitchen. The attic was converted into a generous
client private engineers CRA Ltd. contract value £220,000 area new build 15 sq. m.; remodelled area 90 sq. m. The client asked Halvorsen Architects to open up and enlarge the dark ground floor of their listed Grade II Georgian terraced house in Inverleith. This was done by removing several internal walls, especially around the stairwell, and extending into
Extension and house remodelling, Inverleith, Edinburgh Read More »
client private engineers CRA Ltd. contract value £180,000 area new build 53 sq. m.; total remodelled area 175 sq. m. Halvorsen Architects were asked to remodel and extend a house in Winchburgh, West Lothian. The core of the house was a 19th-century cottage which had been extended many times creating an incoherent layout. The use
client Genesis (J&T) Ltd (Trading as Happy Days Nurseries) contract value £160,000 area 40 sq. m and 45 sq. m. Happy Days nursery commissioned Halvorsen Architects to provide further accommodation for 3-5 year olds at two of their Midlothian nurseries, in Dalkeith and Hardengreen branch. In each case we proposed a detached building – a
client Balcaskie Estate engineers Millard Consulting total area 0.5 hectare Balcaskie Estate, on the East Neuk of Fife, commissioned Halvorsen Architects to convert Balcormo farm steading into a hub for small businesses such as the campervan converters that already operate there. This includes the renovation of several small stone Georgian buildings, significantly enlarging the one
client private engineers CRA Ltd. contract value £287,000 total area 107 sq. m. This four-bedroom detached house in Craigleith, Edinburgh, was built to Passivhaus House standards in the garden of an existing house. The outline of the building reflects the planning constraints in every direction. The ground floor includes a large open-plan kitchen/dining/living area which
client private engineers CRA Ltd. contract value £70,000 total remodelled area 56 sq. m. Halvorsen Architects extended and remodelled a 1970s house in Dunbar, East Lothian. A sun room was created at the heart of the house, linking all the principal rooms and, with the removal of a wall, created a large open plan kitchen-dining
It’s very rewarding to have a client who is dedicated to bringing old buildings back to life. Not only does it help preserve the heritage and character of the area, it also reinforces a sense of place, while helping us to meet net-zero targets – the construction sector is responsible for an incredible 37% of global
Our hempcrete house near Dunbar is going up much faster than we expected. In fact, the construction process is quicker than for an equivalent timber-framed house. This is because the qualities of all the components of a traditional wall are met by the hempcrete alone – with the exception of the structural frame. Unfortunately Hempcrete’s
Our client has moved into her new, four-bedroom Passivhaus in central Edinburgh. It was quite a journey, through Covid and escalating material costs, but we got there and the client is delighted. In fact we have achieved a Scottish Building Standards ‘Gold’ sustainability label it. The Scottish Building Standards Sustainability labelling is a broader endorsement
Originally, the intention was to raise the roof of this modest Georgian home – a converted barn on a steading in Midlothian – to provide more accommodation for a growing family. Then the building materials price hike hit, following Brexit and other events, and the proposal became unaffordable. Instead, we had to fit as much
Halvorsen Architects are lucky enough to have water features going into two current projects. Last week I visited one that’s going beside a new hempcrete house outside Dunbar. It will be fed by rainwater from the roof, and form a focus of the garden, visible from the main rooms. I have learned a lot from the
Halvorsen Architects have just finished an extension to and remodelling of a house in Winchburgh, West Lothian. The core of this house was a 19th-century cottage which has been extended many times, most recently in the 1970s. Halvorsen Architects were asked to add further accommodation and reconfigure the existing house to make the most of
I went on my first ever tour of a working quarry last week. Given my main focus is on ecological architecture, the type of quarry came as a surprise. Kelhead, located near Annan in Dumfriesshire, and owned and operated by Grange Quarry Ltd – which has several concrete plants and two quarries in Dumfries & Galloway,
client private contract value £280,000 area new build 110 sq. m. A speculative house for a small town-centre site in Eskbank near Edinburgh, this has a simple plan with three bedrooms, two reception rooms and a large hall containing stairs and a seating area upstairs. There was considerable local opposition to a house being built
Mass housing developments are the scourge of the countryside. They’re often built without any infrastructure and there has typically been no obligation for developers to consider the wider context of “placemaking”. NPF4’s emphasis on placemaking could change this, but will the framework turn out to be another well-intentioned policy that doesn’t really filter down? Building
Retrofitting our existing housing stock to make it fit for 21st century living is a win-win. Though not cheap, it is an investment in the long-term for people and planet. As clients and governments become more ecologically aware, enthusiasm for sustainable retrofit of our existing buildings is growing. Having carried out several historic and sustainable
The train pulled into the small station of Dunkeld alongside an abandoned station building. I had arrived in rural Perthshire for the Rural Housing Scotland conference 2023. The walk to the Dunkeld House Hotel was longer than I expected – 3 miles – but well worth it. First over the elegant Thomas Telford Bridge where
The nineteenth century prime minister Benjamin Disraeli proposed publicly hanging architects for designing boring buildings. I found this out from a recent article in Building which, to commemorate its 180th anniversary, is running a series of archive articles. The one on Disraeli’s tongue-in-cheek proposal was published on 3 April, 1847. Ironically, some of the buildings
client private engineers CRA Ltd. contract value £82,000 total remodelled area 45 sq. m. The previous pokey ground floor extension was replaced by much larger and extremely light sunroom. A new passageway was formed from the front door to the new extension, giving views to the garden from deep inside. Spaces either side of this
Halvorsen Architects was recently commissioned to design a forest school nursery, which will have a ‘playful’ natural water-treatment system at its heart. While we have done several ecological nursery buildings, this is our first forest school nursery. Possibly worryingly, I find it easy to put myself in the mind of a five-year-old, especially when playing with water, in
